ILOILO City – The Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) approved Supplemental Budget No. 1 amounting to P50,750,000 for the construction of a multipurpose building on Ortiz Street that will temporarily house the city government’s disaster command center.
Part of the budget would also be used to purchase emergency response equipment.
Having a command center for the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) is a necessity, said Councilor Plaridel Nava, chairperson of the appropriations committee.
To recall, a P50-million fund for the establishment of the multipurpose building was included in Supplemental Budget No. 3 last year but this was disapproved by the SP on the ground that the executive branch failed to justify its urgency, necessity and practicability.
According to Nava, his committee reevaluated the executive branch’s position – via CRDDMO head Donna Magno – on the matter.
The CDRRMO envisioned the command center to be a dispatch center, data gathering and repository hub, monitoring center, control and coordination center and as the “last stronghold of the Iloilo City Government Infrastructure particularly in large-scale disasters.”
A permanent CDRRMO command center is proposed to be located in Barangay Lanit, Jaro district. The multipurpose building on Ortiz Street would eventually serve as a substation./PN
